The opening chapter of this tale begins only a few years after the founding of Equestria...
The old unicorn pony plodded through the snow, making his way across the southeastern slope of the mountain, through the tall white pine forest. Although intimately familiar with the terrain, the possibility that the storm bought down branches that would now be hidden under the snow, caused him to step carefully. As he climbed along the slope, he read the signs, carefully interpreting the input of his senses, paying close attention to contradictions, for wrapped within them one could often find truth. It would be one of the last of the winter storms. His celestial observations of the previous night had indicated as much.
He became aware of a change, something in the distance, something beyond, through the sloping wood. He knew the mountain, had walked these slopes for years and yet ahead it looked as though it leveled out to... a clearing? Could that be right? Surely there was no clearing here - certainly no level ground, it was the south eastern slope, ground he'd walked many times, - and yet his eyes told him otherwise. He moved ahead cautiously, with uncertainty, but excited nonetheless. Gradually the wood thickened and the ground beneath his hooves leveled, he felt less strain on his ankles and there - there it was, a clearing, just ahead.
He paused outside the clearing, 10 feet from the edge. It appeared to be a circle, perhaps 100 feet across. He scanned the edge of the perimeter, where the woods bordered the clearing but could see nothing. Beyond which the branches were too dense to see any deeper. Beyond was only darkness. He stepped into the clearing, into the bright winter sunlight.
Within the clearing, all was still. It was neither warm no cold, just a perfect calm. There was no sound, no wind. He closed his eyes and reveled in the stillness. He felt as if, were he to open his mouth and speak, the words would be swallowed up before he heard them. He tilted his head back and let the sun warm his face. It was the only external sensation of which he was aware. He turned to his left, intending to walk the perimeter, but stopped.
He heard them, softly breathing.
There you are. Why am I not surprised? I know I will find you there, yet I have no idea who you are, I only know that you are why I am here... He let the thought drift off.
He opened his eyes and turned around toward the center of the clearing. There he saw it, where nothing had been a moment ago, the moment before he'd shut his eyes. It was a dry dome of red sandstone, perhaps just 8 inches high and 10 feet in diameter. It crested above the surrounding snow, which had melted around its perimeter. It looked as though some immense sphere was buried there under the surface. He looked around again. The surface of the snow all around the circle was undisturbed, not a single hoofprint to be seen. The surface of the stone showed no wet hoof tracks, yet upon the stone, where there had been nothing before, there was now a large woven basket, like a low broad bowl with a large flat bottom, fully six feet in diameter. It sat in the very center of the stone circle. Edges of thick blankets spilled over the sides in various places around the bowl.
It had not been there when he entered the clearing, yet here it was.
It is all such strangeness, and yet it is not. It seems so familiar somehow...
Again, he tried to make some congruence of this part of the mountain that he knew so well, with this flat round clearing, but could not, yet here it was. He slowly approached the circle, dreading the necessity of disturbing this conundrum. It was like art, this beautiful woven bowl in the center, in the sun, defying explanation of how it came to be here. He wished to stand in this scene and become a part of it and not an observer. To reduce his consciousness to that of a figure in a painting and nothing more. To be part of the perfection of the moment.
He wished to only be and not to do. And for a period, he was granted that wish.
Then he heard the sound again. Coming from the basket. He walked slowly with sanctity, again regretting the necessity of disturbing the scene. He stepped upon the stone, leaving a wet hoofprint. Slowly he approached the large basket and peered over its edge. He had seen all manner of things and heard of more than most in two lifetimes, but what he saw almost stopped his heart, for there they were.
Two tiny foals, one with a coat as pure white as the snow around him, the other with a coat as deep as a midnight blue sky. They lay on their sides, positioned as though in the midst of chasing one another. Ones head near the others rear hooves, their bodies curved so that this endless chase almost formed a circle. Their little bodies were not exposed to the elements, he could see their positions by their shapes under the blanket, for all but the upper part of their necks and heads were covered by a thick warm blankets. He could see them feebly moving their legs under those blankets as though they were running. He could see what he took to be wings, moving the blankets in little spasms along the sides of their bodies as though they were in flight. He could see the beginnings of a single tiny horn that grew out from each of their foreheads. He could see them slowly opening and closing their eyes, perfect deep eyes with beauty and complexity. The little mares did not cry, but made the soft whimpering sounds he'd heard. He looked on them and smiled.
"Welcome my little loves, oh so small," he said, his voice gravelly but soft. He knelt down before them, closed his eyes and touched their basket with his horn. "Dream of love my little ponies, that it may be in all your lives, may you know all the colors of love from the deepest to the brightest. May it carry you and guide you and teach you. May your lives be full and surrounded by it, and may you seek your strength from it." He stood and looked at them in silence, and smiled sadly. "We must get you inside my little dears. The sun is good, but not for too long, and you will be hungry soon. You both have such a long, long journeys ahead of you, best to start them with good food."
Time spreads before me in all directions, and I see that which is before me and I have seen the rise and fall of kingdoms, the births and deaths of thousands. So much love and so much tragedy and this future and past I see never reveals itself entirely,
He conjured a spell and a glow suddenly emanated from the rope attached to the pack on his back. He levitated the rope and made one end fast to his pack and sent the other end to the basket. The spell that caused a silver glow to light up his pack, and the rope now enveloped the basket. With that spell he was able to cause the basket to to levitate. He tugged gently on the rope, pulling the basket and let it drift slowly through the air for several feet. Turning around, he looked back at the stone surface upon which the basket had rested, and there he saw them. Two hoofprints in the rock, as though they had been carved there into the stone They were side by side almost 2 feet apart and faced in opposite directions. One was slightly larger than the other, but both belonged to adult ponies. He snorted and chuffed.
As he approached the edge of the treeline he turned around to look at the stone. It was gone and once again, the clearing was a flat expanse of undisturbed snow. Where his tracks should have followed him, there was nothing. He walked backward to see them fill in, as he stepped away, but they did not. He knew, somehow, that they would not until he turned away, and so he did.
He did not have to look for a path through the trees, for the direction was clear, simply walk to that place that hadn't been there a moment ago, that place at the edge of the woods where the branches had suddenly thinned out. They opened wide enough to permit him and the basket through and the opening led to a pathway that he recognized, toward a place he knew well. It was a place very close to one of the few openings to his system of caves that ran throughout the interior of the mountain. As he walked, he felt the slope returning, felt the familiar mountain return. He looked back and there was no clearing, only the pines as they had always been. He smiled and continued.
There was an opening near here, and as he walked along, he looked for it, towing the floating basket behind him. Behind a large boulder that was juxtaposed in such a way that only somepony standing in that very spot could see it, he spotted it. He walked toward it but before entering turned around to check his two young charges. The one with the deep blue coat had somehow summoned the strength to wriggle toward the raised edge of the basket and with no small effort succeeded in resting the side of her head on it. She looked at him sideways.
"Hmmm, what do you want?" he grumbled. She just looked and slowly blinked. He looked back. Unable to help himself he walked to the basket. It floated before him at chest level and he leaned forward and kissed the tiny foal on her forehead. She seemed to smile, then close her sweet cyan eyes dreamily and joined her sister in a deep sleep. He could not stop the tears that stung his eyes as he looked at her, nor the pain in his heart.
"Oh my sweet little love, oh my little one. you have such trials ahead, such joy and such sorrow, such love and such pain. That I could spare you all of it, or even a small piece of it, I wish most devoutly. But know this," his old voice cracked, on the verge of breaking, now just a painful whisper, "there never has been nor will there ever be a pony that I have loved more than thou." As he leaned over and kissed her head again, a teardrop fell softly on her coat.
The miles of caves within the mountain crisscrossed and rose and fell. Small glowing globes floated, bouncing softly against the tops of the caves, lighting their way. His hoofsteps echoed softly on the stone floor as he walked through, passing small rooms and vast halls, past underground lakes and streams. Some walls glowed with iridescence, where they did not, glowing globes of different sizes lit everything. As the caves went deeper, the temperature climbed, making. many of the rooms warm and cozy.
He arrived at a warm room that smelled of cedar and pine, where the floor was a foot thick in dried pine duff. He took several of the large soft blankets from the basket and sewed them into a huge quilt which he laid upon the duff, forming a huge soft floor upon which he set the basket. Should they venture out of it, they would find themselves on a wall to wall soft, warm mattress. The warmth came from all around, from the stone floor beneath the pine duff , and from the walls. Sitting there with the two sleeping foals, he read to them from a scroll.
From his healthy larder he drew the ingrediants to prepare food for them Soft oats mixed with thick cream he brought up from the village down at the base of the mountain. A number of mares had foaled and had extra milk to give him. They knew he cared for animals in the woods on the mountain and that their milk would help to feed them. He got the best thick cream from the farms. He'd helped the earth ponies immensely and they were more than happy to show their gratitude. He took the cream and the milk and mixed them with the thinned sweet oats, using magic to infuse additional extracts from plants that imparted healing and health. Simple spells for strong bodies were added as well.
The little foals thrived. The white one slept a great deal and moved with a grace as she stretched in the basket. The deep blue one was more curious, even at such a young age. He conjured suspension spells to hold the bottles in the air for them to nurse. The white one lay calmly there, taking the nutrition, the other tried to grasp the bottle between two unsure fore-hooves.
"What are you about, my little love?" He asked her, bending over the basket. "You are always so busy, so much to do." With some effort she rolled her little body onto her back and seemed to smile at him. He leaned forward, almost touching his adult nose to her tiny one. She lifted her hooves, pawing at his white beard "Oh, you want to know what this thing on my face is, eh? This thing that tickles your little belly when I lean to nuzzle you. Well it's called a beard. It used not to be so white and long, but I try to keep it clean and trimmed." She pawed it with her tiny front hooves. mussing it up. "Now look what you've done" he scolded gently "you have made a mess of it, just as you have done to my heart."
He looked over at the little white foal who had awoken. She looked at her sister sweetly and seemed to smile at her. The old wizard could see love there in those pale magenta eyes, and he smiled.
"I'm afraid she'll be a handful, but be patient, for her role is a difficult one, but one of such great importance, one that perhaps is greater even than thou's"